Twisting in his Palm
by Leafdiaries
Summary: Set after the end of Book 12, Shuurei is missing and the Black Wolf confronts the wiley fox. Shou and Shouka.


Even with a blade at his throat, Shou Yousei did not stir so much as an old gray eyebrow. He was just that sort of sly fox, never altering position, even when a storm raged at his back. His unwavering nature arose from the single purpose of his existence—a vow that bound him in servitude to the emperor for eternity.

At that moment, the fury unleashed behind him took the form of Kokurou, the Black Wolf, the emperor's secret assassin.

"Ah, Kokurou, how kind of you to visit an old man," Shou greeted his attacker congenially, but did not attempt to face him. "Will you take tea? I have a new blend from the West."

"It's time you should die, old man," a cold voice announced.

"My boy, the time for me to die has come and gone many times and pitilessly still I remain," Shou explained with a dry, cracked laugh.

"Perhaps only the proper means has been lacking," the assassin threatened.

"Perhaps, perhaps," Shou nodded and his jaw bumped the cold steel of the blade hovering below his chin. _This kid,_ Shou sighed, _always so emotional._ "I think you will not be the means today though, Kou Shouka," Shou called the Wolf by the name that linked him to his humanity. "If you kill me today, I wonder if you will ever find your daughter?"

Not surprisingly, Shou felt the blade press into his skin. _Ah, is that a trickle of blood? _the old man sighed. _And these are new robes…_

What did, at last, move Shou was the tremble of the blade against his skin.

"Where is my daughter, you bastard?!" the normally icy voice of the professional killer melted into the pitiful pleading of a desperate father.

Strangely, Shou realized, the quivering tone from this cold-blooded assassin cut through him as no blade ever could. His stomach ached. Perhaps, it was just tonight's porridge.

"I wonder," he answered in a low, gravelly voice that intimated he never wondered about anything, but rather knew everything. The blade reluctantly, hesitantly, lowered.

When he turned, Shouka, or some pathetic shell of the man he normally was, sat hunched on a chair with his head bowed.

"Perhaps something a bit stronger than tea then," Shou offered gently and arranged a decanter of sake and two cups on the table next to Shouka.

Shou settled himself into a chair across from the wretched soul clad in black, who remained lifelessly slumped over in silence.

"My boy, your greatest weakness has always been that you are a family man," he observed.

"And what authority does a dried up, impotent, lonely, selfish bastard like you have to speak about family?" Shouka mumbled bitterly without raising his head.

"So personal, Shouka!" Shou cackled. The trouble was that his remark actually did take a small bite. Shou wondered if he might be coming down with some illness. He was out of sorts.

"Here, my boy, drink up, for you are powerless to do anything else," he poured a cupful and held up his own. "Shall we make a toast to Shuurei-dono's safe return?"

Shouka leapt from his chair, toppling it violently behind him. Shou lifted a placid gaze to the shaking face and blood-red eyes glaring down at him. The younger man lashed his hand out and grabbed the sake cup in his fist. His hand shook with tension for a heartbeat's time, and then the cup shattered into a thousand pieces in his grip. He flung the table aside and crushed the collar of Shou's robe in his trembling hands, lifting him from his chair. The old man's eyes widened for less than a second before the same dull look returned.

"You are a walking dead man," Kokurou promised. "I am the Black Wolf, the hand of justice. I am never powerless." He flung Shou back into his chair, which rocked side to side with the force, and then stalked to the window and disappeared.

Shou sighed and adjusted his rumpled robe, noting the bloody stains from Shouka's hands, cut by the shattered cup.

"Well, these robes are a complete loss," he said to the room's silence. He noticed how unusually oppressive the quiet seemed tonight. His stomach ached again. He decided he would call You-sensei for a check up. He would make a much better drinking partner than Shouka.

Shou crossed to the window where Shouka had vanished.

"Ah, my boy, if only you could see with my eyes," he mumbled to no one and nothing but the empty night.

Because he was a family man, a father, Shouka could not see his daughter as anything but his child, his responsibility, the future of his kind.

However, in Shou's old eyes that had seen too much for one soul to contain, that child was hope—a precious and costly commodity. Shuurei's ability to make those around her passionately love or hate her made her a valuable weapon to Shou. No, not a weapon…a treatment for the deep sickness destroying Saiunkoku and, with it, the emperor to whom Shou's existence had been sworn.

To make the emperor act, he had only to mention Shuurei's disapproval. To curb the Black Wolf, he had only to put Shuurei in jeopardy. The entire Kou Clan exhaled when she inhaled. Even bloodless, cold-eyed Seien worshipped at the temple of Shuurei's whim. Her enemies at court could be easily manipulated by steering her limitless drive and righteousness in directions inconvenient for them.

The old man barked two short, dry laughs. Yes, that girl had healing abilities not unlike her mother. She was a cure for a country. A tourniquet to twist and twist around a festering wound in the nation's body. And as in using any tourniquet, one sometimes had to sacrifice a limb to save the body. He truly hoped from the bottom of his black, useless heart that she would not have to be discarded with the poisoned, decayed remains.

He would miss her manjuu.


End file.
